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A Few Big Name Soccer Players Investing Into Counter Strike - Global Offensive Esports Teams

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dkmathstats
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Hi there. In this non-math post, I want to cover two examples of high profile soccer players that are into to the Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) first person shooter video game. I do follow CS:GO through the HLTV website and do watch some of the games here and there when I have time. I do not play CS:GO currently but I do enjoy watching the games.

This post is based on opinion and items I found on the internet.

 

Topics

  • Antoine Griezmann From FC Barcelona
  • Casemiro From Real Madrid
  • Notes

 

Antoine Griezmann From FC Barcelona

Source

Antoine Griezmann is a well known French soccer player representing Barcelona FC has announced back in January 2020 that he was launching an e-sports team named GriziEsport. According to the source article, the esports team will operate in these five games:

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

  • FIFA

  • Fortnite

  • League of Legends

  • Rainbow Six Siege

Screenshot Image

 

The time of writing this post is January 2021. Their Twitch channel features gameplay from the game Fortnite. As far as I know, there is no CS:GO team under the GriziEsport banner. Perhaps the organization is delaying their financial investment into CS:GO due to lockdowns and the games being held all online without any Local Area Network (LAN) tournaments.

It is unknown what kind of team GriziEsport wants to spend on. The CS:GO french scene right now has one very good French team in the top 5 in HLTV rankings called Vitality which features a highly skilled 20 year French prodigy under the alias ZywOo. The other French teams are not ranked highly as they are outside the top 30 teams in the world. Does GriziEsport want to invest money into a French team or invest into an international English speaking team? Is the goal of the investment into CS:GO for profits or for winning large tournaments? There are a lot of unknowns here. Time will tell.

 

Casemiro From Real Madrid

The Real Madrid player and Brazilian, Casemiro has launched his own Counter-Strike team named CaseEsports. News sources include this piece from November 11, 2020 and this article from HLTV, a top Counter-Strike news website.

Screenshot Image From HLTV

The team that Casemiro has acquired is a five-man Brazilian roster with no confirmed coach. It is not known how much the acquisition cost is for the roster. In the screenshot below from the HLTV article, it states that the team short term goals is to quickly grow in the Spanish CS:GO scene and secure spots at important international tournaments. There are a lot of younger players in this team with the oldest at age 27. The Brazilian players in this squad are not the best Brazilian pro players right now but they could get good over time with more experience.

Screenshot Image From HLTV

Casemiro could have easily spent big money on a team with top players with large buyouts. Instead, he has decided to start small and invest in a young Brazilian team that has potential to do well in the long term.

 

Notes

FC Copenhagen & North CS:GO Team

This is not a soccer player but it worth to mention that the soccer team FC Copenhagen have entered the CS:GO game around 2017. Here are past articles from late 2016 and 2017:

 

Screenshot Image On Jan 11 From HLTV On a Dec 2016 Article

The initial North team consisted mostly of Danes with a Norwegian and was considered a top 10 or 15 team. Nowadays, the North Counter Strike team is fully Danish and is not considered great in Europe and globally. The team has been through many roster changes and coaching changes as well. Their most recent tournament was their upset at the Dreamhack Masters Stockholm 2018 tournament. North was not favoured to win that tournament in the finals over the Danish rival team Astralis.

Critics on the HLTV forum can be childish at times but a loud bunch do laugh at the North teams as they have been bad despite big funds being invested in the last 16 months or so. When I mean by bad it is bad as not being in the top 20 teams and not being contenders to win six figure prize money tier one tournaments. Some speculate bad management in the North organization.

 

It is good to see a few top athletes put some of their money to use through these investments instead of spending it all. Maybe they don't want to be like the bankrupt retired tennis player Boris Becker.

It is unknown if there would be more high profile soccer players or even athletes invest into the Counter-Strike game. The current state of the game is all online matches with limited travel and no LAN tournaments. There has also been some controversies recently with coaches getting banned for exploiting a game bug which allowed for spectating both sides during a match. Another possible factor is the release of the VALORANT first person shooter released by Riot Games.

 

Thank you for reading.

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